I have a 23 year old son who is caught up in this mess of conspiracy theories. He is unemployed and unmotivated to find work. He spends all of his time either smoking pot, listening to AJ, watching Youtube conspiracy theories and posting on Facebook. He has lost all of his friends and has no social life. Arguing or debating the issues is a total waste of time. I have used the material here on this site to try and reason with him but I am sure everyone knows the standard responses I get. It kills me to see my son waste his life.
Are there any success stories out there? Is there any hope for him?
Yes, there is hope. There are people posting here who used to be like your son to varying degrees, and are now are more interested in honest debunking than in spreading conspiracy theories. There are countless more who simply moved on from the conspiracy culture as they grew up. Just do a search for "former truther"
https://www.google.com/search?q="former+truther"
It's hard to give advice without knowing the person and their full situation. But a few ideas:
People often respond to criticism poorly, so when you argue with him, he's not really arguing based on facts, he's simply arguing back as a reaction to you arguing with him. They can be VERY sensitive to even the faintest suggestion that they might be wrong, immediately throwing up walls. Try to avoid suggesting he is wrong. Avoid judging.
Get
him to help
you understand his thinking. Tell him you really want to understand what he thinks, and why he things it. This has three benefits:
- you will understand why he thinks as he does, which will help you talk to him
- it will force him to flesh out for himself why he thinks as he does, and he might uncover some inconsistencies by himself
- you asking him for help will put him in a good place mentally.
If possible, try to focus. Try to get into one subject in depth (not breadth), don't move on to a different subject until you really resolve the one question either way, like "why do you think contrails should quickly dissipate".
If you can afford it, pay for him to take an introductory flying lesson - with no expectations, no test afterwards, just something to give his brain some frame of reference.
Separate from the conspiracy stuff, try to encourage (non-judgmentally) any activity that's not conspiracy related, anything that will give him a more balanced perspective on the world.
And remember he's still young. He will get older. He will change.
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